Media Reviews and shop

It is hard to miss the constant news about humanities problem with greenhouse gasses and the effort to cut our impact on the world. If the world is to stay a good place to live, we need to keep temperature rise to no more than 2 degrees, requiring us to cut our carbon footprint dramatically.This section is aiming to list changes that we can make that will help us deal with this problem.

Electricity and  Gas – Octopus energy with carbon offset

The main source of our emissions in the UK and much of Europe and north America, which is heating of our homes and electricity supply. 

In the UK one company Octopus energy offers a tariff where they guarantee you green electricity, as well as having a carbon offset program to account for any carbon emissions from your gas use. Perhaps more excitingly, in this instance this is also fantastic for wildlife conservation.

Octopus energy’s offset scheme is replanting destroyed areas of the Amazon rainforest. This is obviously fantastic as for anyone concerned with conservation can know that not only is their electricity and heating carbon neutral, but it is also benefiting the natural world.

Their standard pricing is perfectly inline with the national average, and offsetting only adds £5 a month (around 5% of the average UK energy bill)

Using my link below with give both of us a credit of £50 which will assist in the furthering work of this website.

share.octopus.energy/cyan-wind-625

Books

There are many fascinating books about the natural world. I have included many that anyone interested in the natural world would enjoy.

DVDs and Blu Ray

Between documentaries and dramatizations, there are some wonderful dvds and blu rays for sale. I have included many of the best above and will continue to add more.

Cameras

Wildlife photography is one of the most challenging you can undertake. Finding the animals can be hard and take a long time, however what makes this worse is that when found light is often not good, and the animal may not be close by. Therefore, to be successful a wildlife camera needs to work well in low light conditions, cope with bumps and have as good a zoom as possible.

Unfortunately all these can make the camera expensive. While SLR cameras are usually the most advanced, if you are not going to be using the camera a lot you may get better results from a bridge camera.

Below I have listed the camera types, with their advantages and disadvantages.

Compact cameras are small. However they can come with a suprisingly impressive zoom, and detailed picture. This means that with wildlife photography this can still be a significant improvement on a Camera phone

Compact Camera

For those serious and willing to put in the time to understand settings SLR cameras are useful- also given you are looking through the lens rather than at a screen this gives the best idea of what you are taking

SLR Camera

A bridge camera, as the name suggests falls somewhere in between , with the zoom of an SLR but the usability of a compact. They also often offer zooms that are very expensive to compete with when using SLR.

Bridge Cameras

Finally, some thing that is very useful when looking at wildlife is a camcorder. Even an amateur can end up with some fantastic videos from a wildlife holiday.

Camcorders

When travelling for wildlife watching, it is not uncommon to have to move several times. As such a tent that goes up fast is important. I have compiled a page of both popup tents and inflatable

Popup Tent

Popup tents are generally small, and usually only for 2 people. However, with practice they can be erected within a minute or two.

Inflatable Tent

Inflatable tents take more time, though are still far faster than pole tents- the inflatable tubes are also replaceable or patchable unlike breakable poles.

While these are slower than popup tents, with practice they can still go up incredibly fast.

Sleeping bags

In the past, sleeping bags were bulky and not particularly good in cold weather. Nowadays however, you can buy a sleeping bag that is good for subzero temperatures and small enough to throw in a back pack.

Roll mat/ inflatable bed

While in the past true adventurers might sleep on the floor, with the range of quick setup mats and inflatable beds, this is no longer the case. Many of these also now include built in pillow.